Pedro Pascal claims that he didn’t feel like a heartthrob while shooting The Materialists: ‘The weakest I’d ever felt’

Pedro Pascal, the internet’s favourite zaddy, is known for breaking necks (and hearts) in everything he’s been in: The Last of Us to Game of Thrones. But in a new interview with Vanity Fair, the 50-year-old actor revealed that stepping into the role of a romantic lead in The Materialists — Dakota Johnson’s buzzy new comedy — wasn’t exactly a smooth ride.

Pascal, who plays a Manhattan “catch” opposite Johnson’s high-powered matchmaker, admitted he felt physically and emotionally drained going into the shoot. “It was the oldest I’d ever felt in life,” he confessed. “It was the weakest I’d ever felt. It was such a scary, fraudulent thing to feel like I could play somebody who was the catch of Manhattan.”

After a painful back injury on the set of Gladiator II (2024), and falling down the stairs in his dad’s house in Chile, Pascal said he still couldn’t do a push-up when filming began. Despite the physical setbacks, he pulled it off so well that even the interviewer couldn’t resist telling him how dashing he looked on screen, prompting a burst of relief from Pascal. “You think I’m hot in it? Thank God!”

The role marked his first outing as a romantic lead, and it’s clear the vulnerability of that experience left a mark. Though Pascal has become something of a meme magnet for his offbeat charm and universal appeal, he says the public perception doesn’t always match how he feels inside. Recalling Chelsea Handler’s viral compliment about his sex appeal at the Critics Choice Awards, Pascal admitted, “I was in a sling, I was overweight, and when the camera cut to me, I didn’t think anything could be further from the truth.”

Underneath the internet’s favourite thirst trap is a man still wrestling with impostor syndrome. Who would’ve thought?